we listen
- © 2003 - 2023 Dynamix Productions, Inc. Contact Us 0
The sounds of the original Star Trek show find a place in a strange new world.
Think your hearing is good? That notion is destroyed when you find out about all of the other sounds you don't hear.
Read More...
As terrible as war is, it often brings scientific discoveries to the masses in peacetime. One such discovery from World War II is the Sound Fixing and Ranging channel, or SOFAR channel for short. It's not a TV channel, but an ocean channel. In 1944, geophysicist Maurice Ewing discovered a hidden horizontal oceanic layer about 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) deep under the ocean's surface. It's sandwiched between warm, less salty and lighter upper waters, and cooler, more salty denser lower waters. What's unique about this layer is its ability to trap sound waves and channel them over vast distances.
PART I
The year '22 ushers in an exciting new technology. Here's what has been said about it:
"The newspaper that comes through your walls."
"Anyone with common sense can readily grasp the elementary principles and begin receiving at once."
"It will become as necessary as transportation. It will be communication personalized. There will be no limit to its use."
"Ding-dong, ding-dong
Ding-dong, ding-dong
Hark how the bells
Sweet silver bells
All seem to say
Throw cares away"
Peter Wilhousky / Mykola Leontovich
This time of year can be joyous, especially for holiday music lovers. Christmas tunes flow out of stores and TV sets, and holiday concerts fill December's weekends. But one carol, "Carol of the Bells," may be based on a centuries-old doom and gloom song.
"A hospital is no place to be sick."
Samuel Goldwyn
Buford T. Justice: Breaker, breaker for the Bandit.
Bandit: Come on back, breaker.
Buford T. Justice: Bandit I got a smokey report for you. Come on!
Bandit: Well, talk to me good buddy.
Buford T. Justice: You got trouble comin...
Bandit: Well what's your handle son, and what's your twenty?
Buford T. Justice: My handle's Smokey Bear and I'm tail-grabbin yo ass right now!
Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
Just when you thought CB radio was dead, the Federal Communication Commission passed a rule that might have every "Smokey and the Bandit" fan yearning for another sequel. The FCC is allowing FM transmission on CB radio!
Captain of the 'Weser': What's it like down there, in a submarine?
Der Leitende: It's... quiet.”
Das Boot, 1981
Submarines need to be stealthy...and quiet. New technology like acoustic cloaking is on the horizon.
Mickey Mouse: Mr. Stokowski. Mr. Stokowski! Ha! My congratulations, sir.
Leopold Stokowski: Congratulations to you, Mickey.
Mickey Mouse: Gee, thanks. Well, so long. I'll be seein' ya!
Leopold Stokowski: Goodbye.
In 1940, before the world would be plunged into a half decade of devastating conflict, a larger-than-life cartoon creator teamed up with a wild-haired orchestra conductor and unleashed a fantastical film that would forever change the way we experience movies. The morning after the gala event at the Broadway Theater in New York City, The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther said, "The music comes not simply from the screen, but from everywhere; it is as if a hearer were in the midst of the music." Even with all the wondrous characters, vivid animation, and whimsical storytelling of this new film, it was the sound that stole the show.
"There is no reason that function should not be beautiful. In fact beauty usually makes it more effective."
Spock
Function and beauty can coexist, especially in headphone design.
"I hear the train a comin', it's rolling round the bend
And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when."
Johnny Cash
"Folsom Prison Blues"
A train horn can be musical, loud and annoying, or even whimsical. But above all it's a communications device.
"If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy."
Blaise Pascal
French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, writer and Catholic theologian
(1623-1662)
Are you working in a job that you love? Are you doing a skill that comes naturally to you? Can you imagine doing anything else? If you answered Yes, Yes, and...Yes, then you must be insanely happy. It could be healthy to daydream of doing something else, or even partake in different kinds of productive activities that are wildly different from your career. Studies of scientists have shown that the more varied their hobbies, activities, and other professional pursuits are, the more important and numerous their breakthroughs may be. Performing the same task over and over again becomes drudgery, no matter if you're a widget stamper in a factory or a recombinant DNA engineer in a lab. Our minds need diversion in order to focus when it's important.
"Music's always been at the heart of Apple. It's deep in our DNA. We've sold Macs to musicians since the beginning of Macs."
Tim Cook
Twenty years ago this month, Apple officially launched OS X. Apple finally had a legitimate PC killer that would kick the Mac vs. Windows debate into overdrive. In 2001, many studios and video editing companies were already using Macs as the foundation for their digital production systems when OS X dropped, but it literally changed the game.
"Simplicity makes me happy."
Alicia Keys
Comedian Jim Gaffigan has a classic gut-busting routine about Hot Pockets. After expounding on the unsophistication of eating them, he envisions the meeting with the jingle writer:
Do love that jangle.
Do you think they worked hard on that song?
"What do you got so far, Bill?"
"Uh... uh... (sings) hot pocket?"
"Thats good, thats very good.
The jingle is almost as good as your "By Mennen"
Our daily life has us ingesting "jangles" and other ear worms that have become part of our subconscious. Maybe you've heard these simple sounds over and over again:
"Liberty, Liberty, Li-berty, Liberty"
"Nationwide is on your side"
"Double-A, TOOT-TOOT, M C O"
These sounds are almost as familiar as a logo like the Facebook F, the Micheline Tire man, or the Disney mouse ears. These are all trademarked logos and visual advertising devices. Sounds can also be trademarked as well.
"Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech."
Martin Farquhar Tupper
For the first century of our nation's existence, a very select few ever heard their president speak. 130 years ago, technology changed that.
"It is easily overlooked that what is now called vintage was once brand new."
Tony Visconti
Which name will stick to a new technology? It's usually not the one given to it by the inventor.
Read More...
“In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.”
Robert Lynd
Though we may seem as different as night and day, avians and humans may be more connected to each other than you think.
"I think reincarnation is possible. Hopefully, we all get recycled."
Christina Ricci
We all should recycle. A look at repurposing old audio gear into funky new uses. Plus find out the latest news from Dynamix Productions.
- Lt. Werner: What's going on? Why are we diving?
- 2nd Lieutenant: Hydrophone check. At sea, even in a storm you can hear more down here than you can see up there.”
Das Boot
In the near future, submarines might be using sound waves to communicate through ocean waves.
"Call me a relic, call me what you will
Say I'm old-fashioned, say I'm over the hill
Today' music ain't got the same soul
I like that old time rock 'n' roll."
Bob Seger
Digital media is doomed to disappear at some point. Records may outlast hard drives, CDs, tapes, and other formats we haven't dreamt up yet. But what about stone tablets? I take a look at some of the oldest surviving forms of written music. You might be surprised what some of them contain.
"I got a chain letter by fax. It's very simple. You just fax a dollar bill to everybody on the list."
Steven Wright
William G.H. Finch had a crazy idea. He liked efficiency, and he liked news. He imagined a future that would merge those together for the average American. Americans like Joe and Jane. When they woke up in the morning, this crazy idea goes, a box in their parlor had just printed out the latest news onto paper with stories and pictures, ready to be poured over while eating their breakfast. Wait – that kinda sounds like the here and now. What's crazy is that this brainchild was born in 1933.
“There comes a time in a man's life when he hears the call of the sea. If the man has a brain in his head, he will hang up the phone immediately.”
Dave Barry
Something people have been overpaying for since forever are music knockoffs. In the 1800s hucksters would blatantly rip-off sheet music; early records were either re-recorded or re-pressed from originals; and illegally replicated compact discs filled up warehouses for decades. Savvy consumers usually know fake from fact, but in this digital only world, it's getting harder to tell. But help is on the way.
"Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water."
W. C. Fields
100 years ago, a restrictive law popularized a new American art form. PLUS, find out what's been going on in the studios of Dynamix Productions.
"I got rhythm, I got music, I got my man
who could ask for anything more?"
George and Ira Gershwin
Do animals have rhythm? I found myself wondering that as I watched my cat's tail thump. Because of some slight annoyance only a cat would have, Onslow thumped his tail rhythmically several times, then slowly stopped after about a minute. In fact, he did what we call in music, a retard. That is, his tempo slowed down in a methodical manner, each successive tap mathematically slower than the previous. I actually tapped my finger nearly in time with his tail as it came to a stop. So was he singing Brahms' Lullaby in his head, or was he just becoming less annoyed?
Researchers have been wondering for a long time if animals understand music. Specifically – can animals follow a beat? Charles Darwin, while writing about the evolution of music, postulated that music tapped deep into the roots of evolution and was spread across the animal kingdom. After all, frogs chirp in a rhythm, fireflies blink to a quasi-beat, and elephants can dance. But these delightful displays of disco-like rhythm can't really answer that question without more study.
Enter Snowball. Snowball is a cockatoo that was brought to a bird rescue organization in 2007 that loves to dance to music. In fact, Snowball can dance to different tempos, rhythms, and songs. What started as a novelty turned into full-blown scientific studies and a new field of study. Scientists began observing how a variety of animals that are exposed to music behaved, and found that those that could vocally reproduce sounds they've never heard before (vocal learning) are more likely to be able to "entrain," that is respond to an external beat. These include parrots, elephants, and us.
The working hypothesis was that only vocal learners could entrain. But a rescued sea lion named Ronan clouded the picture. Researchers at UC-Santa Cruz used a thin evolutionary connection between walruses and seals (which can imitate speech) and their distant cousin, the sea lion (which can grunt or bark on command and at different speeds) to push the limits on the vocal learning theory. Ronan first learned to bob her head to simple metronome beats, but graduated to real music. EWF's "Boogie Wonderland" was a favorite, as well as Snowball's fave "Everybody" by the Backstreet Boys.
Primates, previously thought to have no response to music, began to show they could groove as well. Though great apes are nonvocal learners, wild chimpanzees and bonobos have been observed drumming their hands and feet on their bodies. Recent controlled studies had bonobos drumming in sync with humans, but the jury is still out on whether that's a result of them becoming too humanized while in captivity.
So now the working theories started to get out of step and lose their groove. Do animals need vocal learning neural circuits in order to have rhythm? We know the body can move with a beat, but what about the brain? Scientists began looking back at neural studies about rhythm to see. In 2005, researchers found that certain neural circuits will oscillate in time with external rhythmic tones. Subsequent studies have found the same thing occurring in other animals, like monkeys and zebrafish. To take it further, and deeper into the brain, researchers found that neural circuits used for motion control also process auditory rhythms. And they seem to store patterns for us to reproduce later. Even when one is at rest, the motor circuits are active and anticipating when the next beat will be.
So why would the brain want to connect hearing and movement? Maybe it goes way back in evolution to being chased: the anticipation of the next footfall behind you or the swing of the predator's claw toward you could save your life. Rhythm is all through nature, from birds flying in formation to the highly coordinated hunts of wolves. But cockatoos, elephants, and humans that can vocalize may have a more highly developed response to music. It's been theorized that creating and responding to rhythm is mostly a social behavior. Human, parrots, and elephants are social species that use vocalization to communicate. And vocalizations are rhythmic in nature. Our ancestors, it's thought, sang and danced as social ritual before refining language. The next question in this research is, how do we motivate other animals enough to reveal their true musical abilities? Can a fish perform synchronized swimming? Can a horse clomp to the theme song from Mister Ed? Can my cat learn to dance? Well, probably. But he doesn't want to, because he's... you know...a cat.
"These fellows blow their horns just to see the people jump, I believe."
Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison, 1902
At the turn of last century, the automobile was poised to overtake the horse as the preferred mode of personal transportation. But there were detractors to the coming sea change. Much as we see driverless cars as a potential danger today, "horseless carriage" opponents saw the drivers themselves as dangerous.
Read More...
"Again and again, the cicada's untiring cry pierced the sultry summer air like a needle at work on thick cotton cloth."
Yukio Mishima
Recording location audio outside can be challenging at best. The video team wants an exterior shot because architecture or a landscape in the background can add to the image. But alas, there are often unwanted sounds like cars, HVAC blowers, and other manmade annoyances that we must work around. There's one sound though that is nearly impossible to eliminate, fix, mask, hide, or yell-at-to-be-quiet. It is guaranteed to ruin almost any exterior recording in the summer: the mating song of the cicada.
These little bug(ger)s come out of the ground periodically (mostly every 13 or 17 years here in the Ohio Valley) to anchor themselves to a tree and incessantly cry out for all to hear. It's not their little vocal chords that are producing these 120-decibel cries. The jar flies are contorting their torsos to flex in and out, causing two tymbals, or ribbed membranes, to vibrate 300-400 times a second. This produces a noise that's as loud as a jet engine and between 3KHz and 16KHz - right smack in the middle of the human speech range.
Human speech generally falls between 3KHz to 5KHz, like the sound of an old-time phone call. The nuances of intelligibility, such as the consonants S, H, F, and so on, are heard above 5 KHz. That makes removing the background sounds of cicadas difficult because you could also remove subtle sounds of speech. Noise reduction software has become very sophisticated today, but dynamic sounds like cicadas (their cry rises and falls in pitch and loudness instead of being drone-like) poses many challenges. We can painstakingly "paint out" some of the offending sounds, but it's best to leave some of it in so we don't lose key frequencies in the voice. If a dialog track with cicadas is heavily edited, then this can result in having cicadas in one clip and not the next. Or falling in one clip and rising in the next. This is jarring to the listener and is very difficult to fix. We sometimes actually add cicada song back in underneath to mask those continuity-challenged edits.
While recording, we can sometimes position the microphone and talent to reduce the cicada song, but inevitably a critter in another tree fires up his belly to blow the take. There's just no easy solution to this dog day dilemma. The sound is so hated, Japanese television has a Godzilla-like monster called "Cicada Man," probably created by a sound engineer. They're so passionately tired of them in Mexico that Raymundo Pérez y Soto penned the great mariachi song "La Cigarra."
But leave it to the U.S. Navy to find the positives in the piercing cicada death song. The Navy is no stranger to harnessing wildlife to help their efforts. They have a marine mammal program that uses bottlenose dolphins and sea lions for mine detection, ship and harbor protection, and equipment recovery. What on earth could they use a cicada for?
The Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Rhode Island has been studying this tiny creature's anatomy with a CT scan-like technology called microcomputed tomography to try and figure out how it makes its loud chirp. They've found that a cicada's two tymbals act as dual speakers when the insect contracts and releases their ribs. It's a highly efficient way of producing twice the sound with one action. And why would the Navy be interested in sound? Why sonar of course. Doubling sonar's efficiency is like seeing twice as far with radar.
It seems that Raymundo Pérez y Soto was ahead of his time in the 1950s when he wrote La Cigarra. He may have foretold the odd marriage of the cicada and the Navy:
Don’t sing to me anymore, cicada
Let your singsong end
For your song here in my soul
Stabs me like a dagger
Knowing that when you sing
You are announcing that you are going to your death.
Sailor, sailor
Tell me if it is true that you know,
Because I cannot distinguish,
Whether in the depths of the seas
There is another color blacker
Than the color of my sorrows.
"It's an interesting place to be. I recommend it."
Astronaut Neil Armstrong commenting about the moon
Every time I hear the timeless phrase Neil Armstrong uttered while stepping on the moon, I can't help but remember the first time I heard it. It was 50 years ago at about 11:00 PM on July 20, 1969. I was eight-years-old and had fallen asleep waiting for them to get out of their strange looking space craft. Our family was vacationing in a cabin on a lake in southern Ohio, and Dad had hauled our portable black-and-white TV from home. We had a lot of trouble getting any TV stations out in the country on that little box. I seem to remember him fiddling with the rabbit ear antennas and positioning all of us at different places in the room like chess pieces so the picture wouldn't flutter.
"Radio is a hungry monster that eats very fast."
Tyler Joseph
Everything today seems to be sped up. We speed to work, we speed to pick up the kids, we speed home, we speed around the kitchen, we speed watch TV, we speed listen to podcasts, we speed, speed, speed...then we speed sleep so we can get up and do it all over again. And as if on cue, much of what we watch and listen to is also sped up.
For years, top 40 radio stations sped their turntables up so that songs played faster, albeit at a slightly higher pitch, to fit more tunes within an hour. They claimed it gave more energy to the station's sound, but profit was definitely the motivator because one or two more commercials could be fit into an hour. They also sped up those commercials for the same reason. Think this is ancient history? Nope. Some stations still do it with digital software that plays the songs faster without the pitch problem. Commercials are also still sped up, and pauses and silence gaps in talk shows are digitally removed so that they can - guess what? – fit more commercials in the hour. What's friendly for the station isn't always friendly to the artist. When the Go Go's released "We Got the Beat" in 1980, sales weren't very good in the UK. The band felt the low sales were partially due to the sped up tape for the 45 RPM release.
Television isn't immune to the speed wars either. Cable TV networks are notorious for editing and time compressing programs to jam into a time slot and – play more commercials. I remember first spotting this television trickery when watching a very long movie in just two hours with commercials. They really want to sell us more U.S. Mint Gold collector coins and life insurance.
The broadcasters aren't the only one thinking about squeezing media. The 78 RPM record, or "single," as the record company muckity-mucks now call it, was typically 3-minutes. So songwriters were encouraged to write nothing longer than 3-minutes, preferably 2. That same philosophy carried over to the 45 RPM record (which actually held about 4 1/2 minutes). You can hear this push for short singles in early Beatles records. "Love Me Do" debuted in 1962 and was 2:22 long. The moppy-haired head-shaker "She Loves You" a year later was even shorter, clocking in at 2:18.
One trick in getting song lengths down was to get to the chorus early. Sticking with the Beatles (and why not?), "Can't Buy Me Love," "Help," and "She Loves You" all start off with the chorus before getting into the first verse. Another composition method that may shorten a song is AABA, which harks back to the Tin Pan Alley days of simple phrase construction. The first two phrases (A & A) are similar, the third phrase (B) is different, then the last phrase (A) is similar to the first two. Songs with this structure are "Over the Rainbow" and "Blueberry Hill."
The time signature will sometimes shorten a song, though mostly unintentionally. Instead of the traditional four beats to a measure, 3/4 time has only three. The waltz, in 3/4 time, is a centuries-old method of getting people off their feet to dance. It (and its cousin 6/8 time) has been used in pop tunes such as "Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be Will Be)," What the World Needs Now Is Love," and "Take It to the Limit" by the Eagles. And we can't forget about 7/8 time, like the classic "Money" by Pink Floyd.
They say that what goes around comes around. Today, streaming services such as Spotify are influencing how songs are written based on the artist payout structure. Because physical sales (CDs and records) of music are way down, more and more money is made from streaming sales. Those payouts are based on listens, specifically if the listener hears at least 30 seconds. According to "Switched on Pop" host Charlie Harding, the average song length has decreased from 4:30 in the 1990s to 3:42 in 2019. Instead of long intros, artists are now introducing part of the chorus early in the song to get the hook in the listener's ear so they stay around longer. Albums or collections of songs also contain many more short songs than they used to. More songs listened to mean more money for the artist.
Surprised that artists are manipulating your buying habits? Well, the music business is just that – business. As Paul McCartney commented on the fortunes that "Can't Buy Me Love" brought to the Beatles, he said 'It should have been "Can Buy Me Love."'
"It was easier just to say it out on a tape than trying to write it because it will take a lot of writing paper in order to get it straight."
Private First Class Frank A. Kowalczyk
Long Binh Post, Vietnam, 1969
Back when it was expensive, or impossible, to call someone long distance, friends and family members would send messages on records and tapes to each other through the mail. Not only was it more affordable, it was a more personal way to stay in touch with each other and have some fun doing it. When I digitize some of these audio letters for customers, and feel like I'm transported back in time that a way that a letter can't take me.
"Nostalgia is not what it used to be."
Simone Signoret
Record stores all over America will be opening their doors on April 13th for National Record Store Day. But cassettes are sneaking in through the back. These portable petite plastic packs from the past now have their own Cassette Store Day each year in October, and they're winning over some fans that also shop for vinyl. In fact, annual sales of music cassettes were up 23% in 2018, and 70% since 2016. Artists and studios are rethinking this ancient format and not only re-releasing albums popular during cassette's halcyon days, but new music as well. What's with the retro rewind?
"TV gives everyone an image, but radio gives birth to a million images in a million brains."
Peggy Nooman
The recent presidential elections in Nigeria and Senegal stirred fond memories of my childhood. Specifically the "sounds" of Africa I remember growing up with. I haven't had the good fortune to go to Africa, but I've listened to it from afar. In the 1960s and 70s, radio was perhaps at its peak. AM radio stations played the hits, FM radio played the albums, and CB radios were in kitchens and cars. A lot of homes also had a shortwave radio. Today it's the internet that ties us all together. Back then, CBs connected us with our friends, AM and FM connected us with the country, and shortwave connected us with the world.
My favorite saying is, 'If it's too loud, turn it up.'
Tori Amos
You often hear the phrase "The shot heard 'round the world," referring to the first shot fired of the American Revolution in Lexington, Massachusetts. Or for us baseball fans, Bobby Thompson's dramatic game-winning home run when the New York Giants beat the Brooklyn Dodgers for a trip to the 1951 World Series. Both of these pale in comparison to the 1883 explosion of the Krakatoa volcano. Dubbed as the loudest sound in history, it was also the farthest traveled.
10:40 p.m. “I got about 2,000 college students coming from Walnut Street to 30th to Center City.”
10:46 p.m. “It’s endless, chief. Endless.”
11:11 p.m. “They’re on top of trash trucks. There is to be no one on top of trash trucks, guys.”
11:14 p.m. “We have multiple people on Broad Street swinging on light poles.”
11:20 p.m. “Climbing the trash trucks at 13th and Market.”
11:25 p.m. “I need to get the fire extinguisher out of my trunk. I got a fire on Broad Street just south of South. Someone lit a Christmas tree on fire.”
Philadelphia Police radio transcripts after the Eagles won the 2018 Super Bowl
Do you remember the old movies from the 1930s when a radio in a police car would blare out "Calling all cars! Calling all cars!" The diligent policemen would zoom away in their car with the siren screaming. The dispatcher had no idea if the radio cars heard the frantic call because two-way radios were uncommon and expensive. So from the late 1920s until after World War II, most police departments relied on their cruisers having radio receivers only. Today, police use digital radio systems that carry data, video, and other information.
"I bought a Dutch barge and turned it into a recording studio. My plan was to go to Paris and record rolling down the Seine."
Pete Townshend, The Who
What do you get when you combine a $150 microphone, a simple audio interface, a computer, audio recording and mixing software, and some musical talent? Maybe a hit record, even if it's made in an apartment living room in the middle of the night. The tools to produce quality music recordings are ridiculously good, affordable, and plentiful these days. It wasn't always like that. The Beatles, for instance, recorded the bulk of their music in London's EMI studios, a corporate juggernaut complete with tie-wearing audio engineers. In the U.S., record companies practically burned cash using session players such as Hal Blaine, Glen Campbell, and Carol Kaye of Wrecking Crew fame in commercial studios. In the 70s, The Porcaro brothers, Steve Lukather, David Foster, and other household musical names rode the session player wave until synthesizers and affordable recording equipment came along.
I'm conflicted on the topic of recording music at home. The business part of me frets about studios losing out on billable hours. The musician part of me relishes creating art in a non-pressure environment. But the history of artists recording radio-ready songs in their humble abodes goes back further than you might imagine. Let's explore how affordable home music recording for the masses came to be, but also look back at the origins of this revolution in recording.
Blank recordable phonographic discs first appeared in the mid-1930s as a way to instantaneously record sounds to disc. Some of these early direct-to-disc recorders were somewhat portable, at least enough to be carted around in the trunk of a car. John Lomax used a 300 pound one to crisscross the south recording folk songs from such legends as Lead Belly for the Library of Congress. I discuss John and his son Alan in my article "Recording History" here. Over time, direct-to-disc cutters shrank to the size of a small suitcase, but the convenience and quality of the next big recording technology would overshadow it.
Enter magnetic tape recording. Technically, it was invented at the turn of the century, but its development was in Nazi Germany. In 1945, when the Allies were divvying up the spoils of war, the U.S. chose the Ampex Corporation to manufacture the first American-made reel-to-reel recorders. Artists like Bing Crosby and Les Paul pushed the technology to its limits while inventing new techniques and recording methods along the way. Working out of his home, Les Paul and Mary Ford recorded a string of hit songs using crude overdubbing and half-speed effects. Paul was also fortunate enough to have the first 8-track recorder, again inventing recording methods that would be used for decades. I also wrote in detail about Les Paul in my article "Recording History."
But these machines were beyond the budgets of ordinary people. For much of the 50s, 60s, and early 70s, multi-track recorders were bulky, expensive, and hard to maintain. Recording tape for multitracks, usually 1" or 2", cost a small fortune. Consoles to record and mix on were also quite expensive. But things were changing. Microphones started to come down in price in the 60s, especially when Shure introduced the SM57. The "57" is now a staple for recorded and live music (and is still the preferred microphone for Presidential speeches).
As post war technological advancements matured, inventions such as the transistor and IC (integrated circuit) started to shrink electronics. Japan had rebuilt its factories and started to make major innovations in electronics. The Japanese company TEAC (later Tascam) almost single-handedly invented the home recording market in the early 1970s with affordable 4-track recorders that used miserly 1/4" tape (I used the TEAC 4-track in my very first recording experiences in the 70s). By the late 70s they had introduced an 8-track 1/2" recorder. In later years Tascam would sell other firsts, like the first 8-track reel-to-reel / mixer combo, the 4-track cassette recorder, the R-DAT, and the MiniDisc multitracker.
In the early 80s, another Japanese company, Fostex, rocked the world when they introduced an 8-track reel-to-reel recorder that used 1/4" tape. They later squeezed 16 tracks onto 1/2" tape and 24 tracks onto 1" tape – with SMPTE and MIDI sync to boot. The G24s was the ultimate affordable tool of small studios until digital recording came along.
In the 80s synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and sequencing software started to take over the music world. Much of the performance was done in the musician's home on the keyboard while a computer acted as a modern piano roll and recorded data from key presses and the sustain pedal. With simple mixers and affordable recorders, all that had to be added were live performers in a studio.
Some classic albums have been wholly or partially recorded and mixed in home studios with this early affordable technology. Tom Sholz cut most of the guitar and drum parts to Boston's first two albums in his basement on a Scully 12-track 1" machine. Tascam's 4-track cassette recorder was the center piece for Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, Wu-Tang Clan's debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), and Iron and Wine's debut The Creek Drank the Cradle.
Today's cheap but effective music creation tools, such as GarageBand, are available to the masses like never before. So hold off angrily pounding on your neighbor's door in the middle of the night. Maybe that glass-rattling thumping bass might be the next Grammy-winning album being made.
Read about Tom Scholz creating the first two Boston albums in his home in Guitar World.
Mix Magazine talks with Scholz about the classic song "More Than a Feeling."
Tascam is the subject at the Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording.
Fostex gives their fascinating history on their corporate web site.
Mix Magazine's behind-the-scenes look at session musicians during the heyday of the LA recording scene in the 1970s.
"Hostilities will cease along the whole front from 11 November at 11 o'clock."
Marshal Foch, the French commander of the Allied forces via radio atop the Eiffel Tower.
This week marks 100 years since the end of the war to end all wars, known today as World War One. In 1918, on the 11th hour, on the 11th day of the 11th month, 1,500 days of fighting came to an end. The armistice was agreed upon just six hours earlier in a railway car halfway between Paris and the Western Front. What's remarkable is the speed at which most troops were informed of the impending armistice. This war, like in so many other ways, forever changed the world of communication.
Read More...
"Hello from the children of Planet Earth"
From the gold records aboard the twin Voyager spacecraft
Vinyl is the format that won't die. It'll probably still be around after humans are extinct and our sun has gone supernova. Perhaps in eons, Voyager spacecraft with the golden records aboard will meet distant stars and future vinyl lovers. But in this eon, people will not stop pushing vinyl to its limits. Mad scientists and crazy artists like putting something other than music on it - or in it. More on that later.
Read More...
"Treat the recording studio as a laboratory for conceptual thinking — rather than as a mere tool."
Brian Eno
When I was young in the...cough...60s and 70s, the only real glimpses I got inside a recording studio was through television and movies. There was a smattering of documentaries and behind-the-scenes footage of studios and radio stations. I was always straining to see the control board and tape machines, or marveling at the cavernous studio on the other side of the glass. It was absolutely riveting to peek inside them and see how a record was made. The 8-foot long mixing console was often shot through a fisheye lens. Long-haired musicians were sunk down into a couch smoking cigarettes (?) and listening to their masterpiece. And there were close-up shots of that big fat 2-inch tape rolling past the heads of the recorder.
"The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
What did Paul Revere's famous midnight ride from Boston to Lexington sound like in April 1775? If you were there, you might recognize the approaching horse as a Narragansett Pacer mare. This once popular breed of horse, now extinct, was known for its ambling gait: a smooth riding four-beat gait that is faster than a walk, but slower than a canter or gallop. You might also notice the calm surroundings interrupted occasionally by crow calls, trees rustling in the wind, or the occasional farm dog barking at the stranger barreling down the rough dirt road. Just someone in a hurry.
"I have been at work for some time building an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us."
Thomas Edison, 1920
What if you nonchalantly recorded something around your house, let's say a music practice session. Then when you played it back, you clearly hear someone whispering. You didn't hear it when you recorded it, so what was it? Many unfamiliar sounds throughout history can be attributed to nature, machinery, and even hoaxes. As our post-industrial society grows, so does the list of unexplained sounds, like trumpet sounds from the sky, humming cities, and ocean whistles. The proliferation of audio and video technology has generated its own tally of the strange. Specifically, weird voices that have been inadvertently and unknowingly captured. These recordings and transmissions sound eerie but have a very unsexy-sounding name: "Electronic Voice Phenomenon," or EVP.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke
To the average person, audio can be a mysterious "myth-terious" thing. Many people don't want to admit that they are intimidated by the technical side of it, and that makes sense. The closest most people get to manipulating audio is adjusting the volume on their stereo.
People probably have more experience manipulating visuals. We create a picture with a camera, crop it, make it brighter, sharper, more colorful. We may even shoot a video and trim the beginning, cut clips together, or add a title in a simple movie editing program. But manipulating audio can be challenging and mystifying. It's rare that someone has competent audio equipment or software in their homes. Even some musicians with home recording gear will admit they know just enough to kill feedback or get something recorded on disk.
Most people are pretty adept at listening, though. We air-jam the lead guitar in our favorite song, or marvel at the sound of jets flying through our living room during an action movie. We also know when something just doesn't sound right.
When making a video on our smart phone, the most common problem is poor audio. What's poor about it? Most people will say that there's too much noise. Usually this means there is too much ambient sound because the microphone is too far away from the subject. The microphone is on the camera/phone, not close to the source. Next time you watch the news, notice the little microphone(s) clipped to the lapel or tie of the anchor. On the rare occasion that one fails, we hear the sound coming from one of the other anchor's mic. It's far away and sounds amazingly like a smart phone recording!
If you've ever watched behind-the-scenes videos of movie-making, you've undoubtedly seen the person holding a very large hot dog on a very long stick over the actor. It's not Oscar Mayer, it's the boom operator. That is a highly directional microphone that will reduce ambient noise but pick up the actor's voice with a natural balance between voice and background.
So let's put on our turbans, uncover the old crystal ball, and dive into some audio myths that you might find surprising.
"The opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings."
Ralph Carpenter, Texas Tech Sports Information Director
Richard Wagner, the 19th century German composer, would have loved Star Wars. He may not have understood what a light saber or X-Wing fighter was, but he would get it - even with his eyes shut. That's because the Star Wars films are rich with composer John Williams' scores that employ a musical tool that Wagner himself was a master of: the leitmotif.
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? "
Albert Einstein
Bell Labs was born more than a hundred years ago out of the need to improve the nascent telephone. It grew into a pure research facility that made an astounding number of scientific discoveries, improved or invented new technologies, and even influenced art and music.
"Analog is more beautiful than digital, really, but we go for comfort."
Anton Corbijn
There's been a growing trend over the last several years to bring back the sound of classic analog gear, such as compressors and amps with vacuum tubes, ribbon microphones, and even reel-to-reel tape. Let's look at how old school charm is finding new love.
"The rockets came like drums, beating in the night."
From "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury
Walter Gripp is the last man on Mars. All the rockets to Earth have launched without him. One evening in a deserted town, he hears a phone ringing. This creepy scenario from Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles has captured the fascination of science fiction fans for decades. The reader wonders, who could it be? The scientist wonders, what would it sound like? We're about to find out...maybe.
Read More...
"Shh! Listen! Someone's coming! I think -- I think it might be us!"
J. K. ROWLING, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Imagine if we could time travel without changing history. If we could go back 50 or 100 years would people view our technology as magic? If we were visited by time travelers from the future, would their technology be magic to us?
"Cooking is like music: you can tell when someone puts love into it.”
Taylor Hicks
The transition from mono to stereo music recordings in the late 1950s had its challenges. Find out how Rudy Van Gelder and other recording engineers worked out the details.
Read More...
"Every crowd has a silver lining.”
P.T. Barnum
126.4 I think that's what will be inside a little oval sticker that I'm going to put on my bumper. I see "26.2" bumper stickers that marathon runners proudly display. Colorado mountain climbers have "14er" stickers. A lot of dads are number "1." Then what's so special about 126.4? It used to be a number for Kings, but now it's a number for Cats.
Before I start to sound like a broken record, let me back up and tell this story from the beginning. Team Cornett wanted to raise the profile of UK Health Care and their close association with UK Athletics, so they came up with a plan to get the attention of a sports crowd. There's no better place for a hyped up crowd than Rupp Arena in downtown Lexington. With nearly 24,000 people, its been known to get really loud in there. It would be the perfect place to try and break the world record for the loudest crowd roar at an indoor sports event. And what basketball game would have the biggest and loudest crowd? A made-for-ESPN-TV marquee matchup: Kentucky versus Kansas.
"The key to this plan is the giant laser. It was invented by the noted Cambridge physicist Dr. Parsons. Therefore, we shall call it the Alan Parsons Project."
Dr. Evil
Austin Powers
Here's something that will blow your mind and make you paranoid at the same time. Someone can listen to your conversations in your house or office from hundreds of feet away using light. The "light" is a "laser," and it's bounced off a window pane to detect sound vibrations. It's hard not to imagine Dr. Evil, played by Mike Meyers, air quoting "laser" when we mention that word. The theory was first proposed in the 1940s, but had to wait until lasers were actually invented in the 1960s to gain traction. By the 80s, the Cold War had us and the Soviets spying on each other using "lasers."
Read More...
“Square in your ship's path are Sirens, crying beauty to bewitch men coasting by;
woe to the innocent who hears that sound!”
by Homer in The Odyssey
I live on a busy street. My house sits roughly between three hospitals - all with helipads and emergency rooms. That's good for me if I have a really bad day, but my poor cat thinks wolves are after her whenever someone else is having a really bad day. I'm talking about the incessant sirens going up and down my street. And they seem to be getting louder – they penetrate my windows and brick walls with even more ferocity than ever before. It turns out that I'm not imagining this, because some emergency vehicles are now employing something called "low frequency system," or LFS. I call it "Loud F*@#$%^& Siren."
In addition to the regular high yelp of a siren, you may have noticed a lower yelping sound that seems to penetrate your car and go straight through your chest. That emergency vehicle has a secondary siren system that emits powerful omnidirectional bass tones from about 200-400 Hz. In this range, sound is "felt" more than heard - up to 200 feet away. These frequencies can penetrate auto glass and metal, wood and brick buildings, and human flesh and bones.
"I used to judge the quality of music by whether I could make a 90-minute cassette and not repeat any artists."
John Hughes
What? Another old audio format is making a comeback? Yessiree! If you want to be hip, then dust off your old Sony Walkman. But like me, you've probably dumped all your old cassettes along with your floppy disks and Trivial Pursuit. These days, my pocket can carry the same amount of music that drawers and drawers of cassettes can.
Read More...
"I hate modern car radios. In my car, I don't even have a push-button radio. It's just got a dial and two knobs. Just AM."
Chris Isaak
Maybe you haven't noticed, but AM radio has pretty much sucked the last twenty years or so. Maybe you didn't notice because you weren't listening. A lot of people aren't, and the FCC is out to change that. The FCC? You bet – this isn't your father's FCC. We're so used to hearing "FCC" and "restrictions" in the same breath, that broadcasters were pleasantly surprised last October when the FCC announced an "AM Revitalization" initiative.
"I throw more power into my voice, and now the flame is extinguished"
Physicist John Tyndall, 1857
There's been a recent breakthrough in fighting fires - using sound waves to extinguish flames. Since 1857, scientists have known that sound waves could put out a flame, but they weren't exactly sure why.
Read More...
"As so much music is listened to via MP3 download, many will never experience the joy of analog playback, and for them, I feel sorry. They are missing out."
Henry Rollins
There's a growing trend in the music business - recording to reel-to-reel tape. Wait, I thought we got rid of that when we went digital. The truth is, it never went away. Much like the recent boom in sales of records and film, reel-to-reels are gaining new fans and bringing back old ones.
"I hope I inspire people who hear. Hearing people have the ability to remove barriers that prevent deaf people from achieving their dreams."
Marlee Matlin
Did you know that more than 37 million Americans aged 18 or older have some kind of hearing loss? And 30 million Americans aged 12 or older have hearing loss in both ears? With a media-rich society, that makes listening to narration, dialog, and speech in general difficult for them. Before 1972, anyone hard of hearing had to watch television with the volume turned up.
"If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners."
Johnny Carson
Eighty-six years ago, three musical tones, "G-E-C," were played on a fledgling network of radio stations. What started as a technical cue for local stations, has become an instantly recognized trio of notes woven into the American identity.
Read More...
"They number girl spies different. She's what you call a 36-23-36."
Max Baer, Jr. as "Jethro Bodine"
"Science is magic that works"
Kurt Vonnegut
"If a tree falls in the forest, and hits a mime, does anyone care?"
Gary Larson
"In radio, they say, nothing happens until the announcer says it happens."
Ernie Harwell
Legendary Detroit Tigers Announcer
There was a time when Americans who wanted to sound important and upper class spoke with a half-American, half-British accent. They call it mid-Atlantic, presumably because the accent lands somewhere in the middle of the ocean between our countries. It was dominant in movies, on radio, in theaters, and on early television. Today, it sounds pompous. Some early practitioners were Franklin Roosevelt, James Cagney, Orson Wells, and Katherine Hepburn. Some more contemporary holdouts were William F. Buckley, George Plimpton, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
"Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning."
Maya Angelou
“Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.”
Will Rogers
It's said that when an early motion picture was first shown to the public, women fainted and men ducked from an approaching train. The director made a bold new decision that would alter the course of filmmaking for the next century. Instead of just placing the camera in front of all the action like an audience watching a stage, the director moved the camera to a new position - within the action - to create perspective. There were more changes on the way. About a hundred years ago, the first color and 3D films were being created. In an Avant Garde era when artists were distorting reality, most filmmakers were trying to recreate reality and immerse the viewers into it.
Realistic sound is no exception. In fact, stereo sound was first demonstrated in 1881, and multiple speaker playback in the early 1930's. These early attempts at locating sounds for the listener were impractical though, and required expensive and ungainly equipment. By the late 1950's, consumers could finally experience stereo with LPs and tapes. But until home theater systems became popular, most had to go to a place like a theater or theme park to experience anything beyond stereo sound.
Since digital audio and video have pretty much taken over the world, we've seen a rapid growth of new technologies. Virtual reality is one of those, like the Oculus Rift, a VR headset for the masses. This is a visual VR device. But what's lacking is auditory VR.
Enter the researchers at Microsoft. They've created a way to fool a listener into thinking sounds are coming from a specific location using ordinary headphones. To make it work, the listener's head and shoulders are scanned into 3D software, which then builds a custom filter. Add motion sensors and a camera to track the listener's position, and the fun begins. Sounds can seem to be coming from objects or areas in a room. Imagine making that stuffed Teddy bear in the corner of your child's room actually talk. That model hot rod on the shelf could rev its engine. The uses seem endless.
It's obvious that this new device will be used as a companion to a visual VR headset. But there could be many more uses. Theme park attractions could be revolutionized by creating more realistic environments while eliminating costly sound systems. The movie industry could enhance the viewer's experience. Music artists could create the ultimate mix, with that lead guitarist standing next to the coffee table.
I think the largest user of this technology will be the advertising industry. Imagine walking down the street with your headphones listening to some music when a voice from your left whispers, "Pssst! Hey buddy, wanna buy a watch?" You turn and see the sparkling Bulova timepiece in the window of the jewelry store.
Train photo courtesy Simon Pielow
The new generation is discovering what the old generation stopped loving - LPs. LP sales are the highs they’ve been in 22 years. Records aren’t just for hipsters anymore, everyone, including the older generation that gave them up, are groovin’ to them.
Read More...
“Within You Without You,” The Beatles
1967
How would you describe a sound to someone without using descriptors that are unique to sound, like: loud, bassy, shrill, whining, atonal, or noisy?
Not a problem, because we most often describe a sonic experience with words related to our other senses: sharp, warm, angular, raspy, piercing, even, warbling, soft, smooth, or flat.
Most of you reading this know us at Dynamix for creating new sounds with new technology. But did you know we also like to resurrect old sounds? Just twenty years ago, magnetic tapes and records were standard formats we worked with everyday. Now, they're just "antiques" and items taking up space in a closet. But many people are discovering (or re-discovering) analog, and they want it in digital form. For many years, we have been helping people resurrect old recordings by transferring their tapes and records to CD. Many of these analog recordings are of family, but others are important historical archives.
Audio books, or what used to be called "books-on-tape," are gaining in popularity now that listeners can easily download them to their portable listening device. In the old days, you had to fumble with a box of tapes or CDs. Now, thanks to software like iTunes, you put a whole library in your pocket. The ease of getting an audio book is exponentially easier with on-line stores like iTunes, Amazon, and Audible. Just like the print market, there's an audio book for just about anything. If you want a book for self-help, do-it-yourself, travel, humor, history, etc., it's out there. And the line between audio books and audio programs is dissolving.
Okay, this is not a gear-geek column (but you fellow geeks can find a little tech talk in the next section "Dynamix Tech Notes"). But rather, a primer on why and how we make our choices for certain audio production equipment. As a part-time educator, I'm often asked by budding filmmakers, "What kind of equipment should I buy?" It's often paired with "How much will it cost?" It's a valid question.
The volume is getting turned down on television commercials. What does that mean for you, the producer or advertiser? Well, you can still scream all you want, but you just won't be louder than the latest installment of a Fast and Furious movie.
With the recent college basketball championships engulfing our March, it's easy to see what it takes to make a winner: teamwork. Okay, I know it sounds cliché, but it's the same in production. If a coach only relies on one player, then the team will eventually fail. Everyone sees the other players just standing around and "phoning it in." What would you think? "Good player, but this team could be so much more." What about "Good video, but it could be so much more."
Read More...
Most productions that go through our studios at Dynamix have some kind of music. It can be a jingle, custom, or library ("needledrop") music. A jingle can be great for branding your client over the long term. But, it's usually the most expensive item in your production budget, sometimes the only item. If you're producing a film, custom music can give cohesiveness to the soundtrack, but can also be expensive - sometimes as much as 15% of your total budget. That's why many projects that have a quick turnaround or tight budget lean towards using library music.
Being in the "Horse Capital of the World," we surely have enough experience to know that a horse sounds much like it did 150 years ago. However, back then a horse's role was very different than today. In a new documentary, "Unsung Hero: The Horse in the Civil War," produced by Witnessing History, LLC for HRTV (Horse Racing TV Network), the role of the horse in the American Civil War is explored in-depth with rarely-seen photographs, documents and artwork. To a sound designer's delight, there are simulated battle scenes, troop movements, and other war action.
One often overlooked service that Dynamix Productions provides on a regular basis is ISDN (see below for a more detailed explanation). It's a real-time digital audio connection that allows two or more studios to deliver near CD audio quality to each other simultaneously. We regularly connect with other studios around the world for voice-over sessions.
Read More...
